What is clarity? I like the way Les Brown says it. To paraphrase: “There is a power in the universe. What this power is I cannot say, but it exists and it becomes available only when a man or woman knows exactly what he or she wants and doesn’t quit until they find it.” Once you know exactly what is you are set out to do, you have clarity, and you go full steam ahead.

Elon Musk found clarity as a college student. “In college, he thought about what he wanted to do with his life, using as his starting point the question, ‘What will most affect the future of humanity?’ The answer he came up with was a list of five things: ‘the internet; sustainable energy; space exploration, in particular the permanent extension of life beyond Earth; artificial intelligence; and reprogramming the human genetic code.'”1 Musk and his teams have made remarkable contributions in 4 out of 5 of those domains, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was already thinking about a DNA reprogramming side-project.

I’ve learned very well how not to gain clarity. Clarity it not obtained by committing information overload. If you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is check Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, news feeds, and email. This is not the path to clarity.